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A door-to-door salesman has cost his company a penalty after ignoring a “Do Not Knock” sign on the front door of a home. A federal court ordered that gas company AGL South Australia and marketing company CPM Australia each pay a share of the $53,592.00 US dollars. The gas company will have to pay $31,262 while the marketing company will have to pay $22,330.

"In this case, the sign was affixed to the consumer's front door and contained an image of a fist knocking with a line through it and the words 'DO NOT KNOCK. Unsolicited door-to-door selling not welcome here'," said a watchdog for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission following the decision by a judge. "The salesperson nonetheless knocked on the consumer's door and attempted to negotiate an agreement to supply energy.”

The salesperson was allegedly there to get a final sale from a potential customer, but completely disregarded the sign on the door. According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the maximum fine for an incident like this is usually around 50,000 Australian dollars. Judge John Middleton said, in his ruling that the penalty he gave was in part to let other door-to-door salespeople that there are real consequences for something like this.

"These penalties reflect the need to deter conduct of such seriousness by the relevant respondents and others in the door-to-door selling industry," said the judge.

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The gas company that employed the salesperson and the marketing company that contracted him out will be footing the bill for this incident. It is not known how the actual salesperson will make out, although it’s safe to say that he’ll probably be finding another job sometime soon.